CAP Leader

Hey, don't complain. I spent hours on my sprite and got 10 stinking votes! I could have submitted an 80x80 black square and it would have gotten 5-6 votes just from accidental clicks, anarchist contrarians, and retards. It would have only taken me 5 minutes. If we decide to trash all this frilly "pokemon stuff" and get straight to the minimum Shoddy requirements, I'd say you STILL made out a lot better than me.

I did get a decent avatar out of the deal though. So maybe it's not all bad...

Hmmm... Both make sense on it, but Mountaineer's gonna be my vote. It seems like such an interesting ability, I think. DJD pretty much said what I was planning on saying about that. Maybe we could save Ice Shell (or a variation of it) for a future "Create a Pokemon" event. Also, I think that KOA should do the pre-evo sprite. After all, it should match the original spriter's style. Also also, Articant seems like a cool name for the pre-evo, though I can go with Syclar as well.

To make an ability specifically targeted for one single move doesn't make sense. Competitively, it's viable. But, it's not like any other pokemon ability. Imagine an ability that didn't affect evasion in general, but specifically Double Team only. Who would make an ability like that? Someone who plays competitive battling Pokemon exclusively, that's who.

To target Stealth Rock as a specific move is just announcing that we really aren't making a general pokemon here. But instead, we are making a laser-precise tool to be used in the competitive Pokemon metagame. If we're going to do that, why are we bothering with pre-evos and dex entries? Let's just come up with some movesets and put it on Shoddy. We don't even need a sprite...

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Except that Stealth Rock is a specific field effect, whereas evasion is a stat. I don't care if you increase +2 defense from Iron Defense or Acid Armor, it's the same net effect and the game doesn't care how you do it. Likewise, if there was some move not called Stealth Rock that had the side effect of causing the field effect Stealth Rock (for example, if Rock Smash had a 20% chance of laying rocks on the opponent's field or something), then this would still prevent against that, too. Field effects are different than specific moves, so your Double Team comparison doesn't make any sense.

CAP Leader

Except that Stealth Rock is a specific field effect, whereas evasion is a stat. I don't care if you increase +2 defense from Iron Defense or Acid Armor, it's the same net effect and the game doesn't care how you do it. Likewise, if there was some move not called Stealth Rock that had the side effect of causing the field effect Stealth Rock (for example, if Rock Smash had a 20% chance of laying rocks on the opponent's field or something), then this would still prevent against that, too. Field effects are different than specific moves, so your Double Team comparison doesn't make any sense.

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I agree that my Double Team comparison is not completely equivalent. But it's closer than you say. I think the general field effect is the same as Spikes and other moves that cause passive damage. In your example, you mention Iron Defense and Acid Armor. Same net effect, different move types. In the case of Stealth Rock and Spikes, it's pretty much the same thing. One is Ground, the other is Rock. Yes, Spikes can be layered, but the field effect is pretty much the same. That's why Rapid Spin clears all of them. To have an ability that singles out one specific move that causes that field effect is inconsistent with the game. You can target the move type, or the move effect. But, to target both specifically? I don't think so.

My general point is that, in Stealth Rock, the pokemon metagame has identified a single move that is particularly disruptive. Is it disruptive to the general game of Pokemon? Not really. I suspect that Ninty thought it was roughly on the same level as Toxic Spikes. To the metagame, it's far more impactful. Yes, Toxic Spikes added a new dimension to passive damage. But, nothing like Stealth Rock. Stealth Rock took almost all Flying, Fire, and Bug pokemon and made them worthless in the metagame. Did Ninty intend that? Probably not. Do they care? Probably not. I don't really know. I'm just guessing.

Does Nintendo care that Ice Shard impacted the metagame more than Bullet Punch? No. I think they came up with a few more priority moves and made one Steel and one Ice. It just so happens that the ice version makes a hella difference in curbing ScarfChomps and all sorts of other metagame horrors. But, if we came up with an ability that affected priority moves, it should affect all of them. We couldn't just single out Ice Shard because it matters to the metagame, or Mach Punch because it doesn't affect Ghosts.

I think Ice Shell and Mountaineer are both "well-formed" abilities. One affects all indirect damage, the other affects all Rock damage. That makes sense, in general Pokemon terms. As for the metagame, we shouldn't focus solely on that.

Couldn't we just make Mountaineer immunity from stealth rock? Wasn't that the main deal with trying to get Syclant in the battle?

Making it get a basically "free" switch if the opponent uses "stone edge" is.. broken, in my opinion, because switches are insanely important to the metagame and by pretty much getting a free one because of an ability, it just doesn't add up. Sure you can argue the opponent can do some prediction skills, but not even SR will affect it..

Well having Stealth Rock immunity wouldn't really be against precedent...back in GSC, Spikes were the only available "entry hazard." Rapid spin simply cleared the field of spikes, while doing a little bit of damage. Spikes are different from Stealth Rock in as much as the fact that the game recognizes them separately.

Perhaps in the future we'll have Stealth Icicles, Stealth Lava, Stealth Vines or anything like that, which will function the same way as Stealth Rock. These can be dealt with accordingly (maybe Mountaineer simply would become "avoids stealth entry hazards"). I still don't see the equivalence of Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Toxic Spikes. They all are different typed moves with different field effects. While they can all be considered entry hazards, each of them create unique, specific field effects...blocking one of those specific effects doesn't seem too out of the question for me.

However, I have to request a few things from KoA... Firstly, could you darken the outline of the pokemon, specifically the arm and shoulder areas. They need to stick out more. Secondly, could you make the horn less fin-like. That's one of the things that has been irking me about your redesign. Thirdly, could you fix the wings. This has been bothering me the most out of your redesign. The bottom pair don't bother me that much (but I'd still like that cross on the bottom crystal), but the top pair is not how I designed it. Here's a sketch of how I envisioned it:

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There ya go, KOA. As for the design, I'd prefer you use the one on the upper left hand corner of this image:

thank you cooper for doing this poll, but please make your 1st post less one sided, ice shell only protects from entry hazards not all forms of passive damage (status, abilitys, other stuff) and comparing ice shell to wondergard + mountineer to honey gather is stupid how is imunity from a 4x weakness for one turn "honney gather"? and imunity fron SR + spikes is not anywhere as broken as wondergard, infact the only pokemon that gets wondergard is slaughterd by spikes/SR, and honey gather? wth.

and for those of you who say that ice shell is broken, plenty of pokemon are imune to toxi/spikes (flyers, levitateors, poison's and steel's for toxi spikes), but NO pokemon have an ability that makes them imune to one of their 4x weaknesses, not even for 1 turn. rock is a common attacking type and syclant resists the type it is most commonly with (ground) it would alow it to switch in on very many things it could not dare to otherwise (Ttar, ryparior, garchomp, and many other phy. seepers). saying that it makes more sence does not work well ether, just because you live near an element does not grant you an imunity from it, its like saying "heatran lives underground, and has a problam with ground attacks, so lets make it imune to ground", on the other hand an icey shell would give you some protection from spikes.

also whichever one wins, i am happy that it was the one people chose.

Cooper, who will run the next "create a pokemon"? will you choose? or will there be a poll?

Couldn't we just make Mountaineer immunity from stealth rock? Wasn't that the main deal with trying to get Syclant in the battle?

Making it get a basically "free" switch if the opponent uses "stone edge" is.. broken, in my opinion, because switches are insanely important to the metagame and by pretty much getting a free one because of an ability, it just doesn't add up. Sure you can argue the opponent can do some prediction skills, but not even SR will affect it..

Maybe rock moves will be negated 25%? 50%? But not fully.

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How is one free switch broken,It is common sense let use t-tar for example,T-tar use stone edge the person use syclant t-tar switches out,the second time you have t-tar out you use earthquake,crunch,dragon dance because person the might use syclant.Thats not broken that how you play pokemon.When person does this with levitate,ghost,water absorb,etc it is not broken.

Ice shell is like Magic Guard/Wonder Guard, but the pokemon that have those abilities are Clefable and Spiritomb, two very defensive pokemon. A trait like that on such an attacking pokemon is broken, so up for Mountaineer.

And i love the name Sylar, i think i was the first to post it, in some poll way back...

Ice shell is like Magic Guard/Wonder Guard, but the pokemon that have those abilities are Clefable and Spiritomb, two very defensive pokemon. A trait like that on such an attacking pokemon is broken, so up for Mountaineer.

And i love the name Sylar, i think i was the first to post it, in some poll way back...

Well having Stealth Rock immunity wouldn't really be against precedent...back in GSC, Spikes were the only available "entry hazard." Rapid spin simply cleared the field of spikes, while doing a little bit of damage. Spikes are different from Stealth Rock in as much as the fact that the game recognizes them separately.

Perhaps in the future we'll have Stealth Icicles, Stealth Lava, Stealth Vines or anything like that, which will function the same way as Stealth Rock. These can be dealt with accordingly (maybe Mountaineer simply would become "avoids stealth entry hazards"). I still don't see the equivalence of Spikes, Stealth Rock, and Toxic Spikes. They all are different typed moves with different field effects. While they can all be considered entry hazards, each of them create unique, specific field effects...blocking one of those specific effects doesn't seem too out of the question for me.

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Okay, I was taking your argument pretty seriously until you said that. You just lost all credibility by comparing the current metagame to GSC, and to moves that don't even exist. You now fail.

eric the espeon: My comparison to Wonderguard and Honey Gather was to prove a point. Would you rather have an ability that lets you come in on the three indirect damage moves in the game, two of which can be found on almost every team? Or an ability that lets you come in on Stone Edge? I was proving how broken one is in comparison to the other.

We could have a vote, but Hyra is the only person whom I remember showing any real interest in changing the program, and he liked my idea of putting him in charge.

eric the espeon: My comparison to Wonderguard and Honey Gather was to prove a point. Would you rather have an ability that lets you come in on the three indirect damage moves in the game, two of which can be found on almost every team? Or an ability that lets you come in on Stone Edge? I was proving how broken one is in comparison to the other.i still disagree but anyway atleast it will be voted for so i will exept whatever the votes say.

We could have a vote, but Hyra is the only person whom I remember showing any real interest in changing the program, and he liked my idea of putting him in charge.maybe say that you are looking for someone to run the next program? then whoever offers to run it and has participated in the program well should be on a poll. i would run the program if chosen. or maybe there could be 2-3 people runing this? i dont know, but i would like it to continue. hyra has been very active from the biging and would probably be a good choice though.

I don't really see how my comparison to GSC or to moves that don't exist "fails." It's not like this pokemon is going to be created by Nintendo in the current generation for use in the current metagame. Sure, we would like it on some Mod server on Shoddy or something like that, but if this thing actually exists in Nintendo-sanctioned pokemon, it will be introduced in a different metagame, in the next generation, which might have all those moves that I mentioned (and don't tell me there's no reason they would ever create those moves, they introduced 100+ new moves for DP).

The comparison to GSC was to show that while at that time Spikes was only one move, Rapid Spin was one move designed to specifically get rid of Spikes. The fact that it gets rid of Toxic Spikes and SR now doesn't say anything about its original intent. How do you know that if GSC had had abilities, one wouldn't have been "this pokemon is immune to spikes?" Sure, all Levitators and Flyers would already be immune, but maybe giving a pokemon ground immunity would have been broken.

So why is it failing to bring up past metagame precedents when we are discussing a potential future metagame?

Ok. I was thinking about this. Don't we need abilities for our Pre-evo too? I was tthinking something along the lines of:
Compound Eyes [Syclar] ---> Compound Eyes [Scylant]
Inner Foucus/Run Away [Syclar] ---> Mountineer [Syclant]
The one to Mountineer needs to be an ok Ability. So I put Run Away/Inner Focus.

Hm... I think we are done. We just need to see KoA's sprite, decide if Sylar is copyright infringement (I don't think you can do that to just one part of a name, Sylar Smith might be able to be copyrighted, but copyrighting a name is like Martha Stewart copying a town name), and height/ wieght.